The ad encourages Americans who have emigrated to Israel from the United States to work from Israel to counter the effects of voting by Americans who live here, Arab-Americans.

The ad is the logical extension of what the American Jewish Committee’s president, David Harris has done for years, trying to limit the influence of the growing Arab-American population.

Under his leadership, the American Jewish Committee issued a study “proving” that, contrary to the commonly used estimate of six million American Muslims, the correct number is 2.8 million.

And why is Harris worried about Muslim population estimates?

“Six million has a special resonance,” Harris wrote in a May 21, 2010 article in Jerusalem Report magazine. ”It would mean that Muslims outnumber Jews in the U.S. and it would buttress calls for a redefinition of America’s heritage as ‘Judeo-Christian-Muslim,’ a stated goal of some Muslim leaders.”

That is some scary “stated goal.”

Even more, Harris is worried that the perception that there are as many Muslims as Jews would give Muslims additional political clout, leading Congress to occasionally actually pay attention to them. (Unfortunately, that is not how it works.)

This ad is the next ugly step. First GOP suppression of the black vote. Now neoconservative suppression of Arab-American votes.

About M.J. Rosenberg

M.J. Rosenberg served as a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow with Media Matters Action Network, and prior to that worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum. You can follow his work at mjayrosenberg.com.

“They got a great run with 6 million people out of 300 million but it can’t go on indefinitely.”

Precisely. Yet the Israeli government, in concert with American Israel Firsters, act as if 3+bilion a year is a birthright that will continue indefinately. It won’t. The Zionist spell has been broken with the generation that’s coming up now and no amount of hasbara will change that. On the contrary, it will have the opposite effect from the one that’s intended.

(excerpts) In late April, Geert Wilders arrived in New York City to tell his quixotic tale to a rapt American audience. The far-right Dutch Party of Freedom leader—perhaps the world’s most prominent anti-Muslim populist—was poised to release “Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me”, a memoir just out from Regnery, the right-wing US publishing house, in which he recounts his courageous efforts to stop the “Islamicization” of Europe. . .. . . Upon Wilders’s arrival in New York, a little-known think tank called the Gatestone Institute rolled out the red carpet for him. On April 30, before a select crowd that according to Gatestone’s website had paid $10,000 a head, he held forth on the persecution he had endured during his recent trial for incitement to hatred and discrimination. . .
. . .At the April event, Wilders’s seamless fusion of anti-Muslim bombast and pro-Israel cant was gratefully received by the Gatestone Institute’s founder and director, Nina Rosenwald, whom he acknowledged at the top of his jeremiad as another of his good friends. An heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald spreads her millions through the William Rosenwald Family Fund, a nonprofit foundation named for her father, a famed Jewish philanthropist who created the United Jewish Appeal in 1939. His daughter’s focus is more explicitly political. According to a report by the Center for American Progress titled “Fear Inc.,” Rosenwald and her sister Elizabeth Varet, who also directs the family foundation, have donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to “organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia.” . . .

P.S. Speaking of trust fund babies, I have read that the infamous, neocon Pajamas Media was begun by one of the Levi’s heirs. You may recall that Pajamas Media sent “Joe the Plumber” to Israel during ’08-’09 assault on Gaza. What an awesome commitment to real journalism!

How mind-numbingly un self-aware to encourage and advertise the use of the very same tactic that you’re complaining about.

There’s probably three kinds of responses to this ad: a) Incredulity and mocking laughter, b) Total acceptance and quaking,”existential” fear, and c) What’s wrong with normal people of any political stripe exercising their rights, who is this group, and why are they so afraid of people exercising their rights?

That’s, speculatively, a 25%-15%-60% mix. If they, or the opposition, showed this video on TV during the campaign, it would more invite a lot of questions (with very uncertain answers) from a big pool of agnostics on this issue than it would shore up any support base.

Organizing a campaign to instill fear using ordinary US citizens of Arab/Muslim ethnicity as the ooga booga…yet again.

And if that’s not enough, How dare they presume to organize and threaten us? The sheer inalienable presumption of superiority in this ad was what got me. That had to come from Israel. I don’t remember anything quite like it originating in the US in my political memory (outside the Wallace campaigns).

We are a diverse group of Olim, recent-arrivals as well as vatikim from all over the country who are deeply concerned about the safety, security and future of Israel. Most importantly, we want to see a President in the White House who will support and stand by Israel in absolute commitment to its safety, security and right to defend itself.

and,

“Americans for Jerusalem” is a registered 501(c)4 and will run the iVoteIsrael Campaign – an issue-based campaign, expressing our desire to see a Congress and Administration who will support and stand by Israel in absolute commitment to its safety, security and right to self-defense, without endorsing any specific candidate or party.

(Note the “absolute commitment” part…)

To put a little finer point on MJ’s point, a tax-exempt (but not tax-deductible) US lobbying shell is being used to channel funds to an Israeli organization run by residents of Israel to get other residents of Israel to vote in US elections by slamming the unquestionably legitimate aspirations and activities of US resident citizens.

Yeah, a little block diagram, a little voice over, a mention of Israel by name, and a lot of questions with not so good answers (for IVI) get raised.

You know I keep trying to imagine how all this US zio Israelism will end.
We’ve been thru several possible scenarios—the US going so broke it can’t afford Israel, a general public uprising demanding a ‘America First’ agenda, an Iran war causing an pubic outcry on Israel.
But this video made me think something else…..about demonizing. All it takes is some mass discontent and one US damaging event linked to Israel and one Leader or Presidential hopeful who wants to capitalize on it …..and we could have a Hitler lite.
Israel, the zios, even the Jews could be demonized as easily to the public as the Muslims have been demonized to the public.
One event, one public figure with ambition, some backers with money, especially some corporations whose advertising $$ control the msm…and the public could be given a new demon.
I wonder if the zios ever think about this….. how easily their whole game could flip on them if the stars align a certain way.
Some day a more cunning, more charismatic Ron Paul type could come along and collide with a certain event at a certain time and away we will go.

I try to imagine all possible scenarios, events, outcomes and etc. in a problem. There are huge buildings full of people in DC that are paid to do nothing but imagine ‘what if’s” and develop plans for what if’s.
I also carry jumper cables in my car and have smoke detectors in my house for what if’s. Thinking ahead is not usual.

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